


Go Find Out

by MayContainBlueberries



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Discussion of Death, Gen, Timeheart, i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 08:46:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4215288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayContainBlueberries/pseuds/MayContainBlueberries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fred has always thought of the Powers as pillars of energy, as a confluence of emissions or a spider-webbed superstructure of creation. He has not been expecting to find one masquerading as a colourful bird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go Find Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Crystal_Silvera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystal_Silvera/gifts).



Fred spends the week before going to the city more or less around Nita’s house. He’s fascinated by _everything_ , and passes most of his time seeing all there is to see. On Tuesday he trades notes with the microwave oven on longwave radiation. Wednesday he befriends a colony of ants living in a wall. He tells Nita about them later that afternoon, and the two of them go down to talk to the ants about maybe relocating somewhere less invasive. He spends Thursday watching with great interest as Betty Callahan pulls out the ironing board and flips on the television. He can’t make out what it is trying to tell him with all its emissions, and resolves to solve this mystery on his own. He feels like every other sentence of his is “Nita what is…”

So it’s Friday and there’s something tickling at his mind and Fred leaves the property for the first time since Monday. He heads over to the advisories’ house, thinking there’s something he wants to ask them but he can’t figure out what it is.

The wizards are both out when he gets there, and Annie gives him a vague wag of the tail from where she is lying splayed out on the floor. Fred dithers. Should he wait for someone to get home, or come back later?

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten my advice already,” an irate voice says.

Fred follows it into the kitchen, and sees the macaw, Machu Picchu, perched on the countertop. Suddenly he figures out what has been bothering him.

“Elder sister!” he says. “Honour and greeting, in the name of the One.”

The bird appears unimpressed.

“I…” Fred stumbles.

Fred has always thought of the Powers as pillars of energy, as a confluence of emissions or a spider -webbed superstructure of creation. He has not been expecting to find one masquerading as a colourful bird.

“You might want to watch those X rays,” Peach says.

Fred realizes, in his surprise, he’s been emitting shortwaves again.

“Sorry,” he says, embarrassed.

Peach sidles along the counter towards him, “So why are you here, sunseed?”

She says nothing of his earlier greeting.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he replies, realizing as he does that this is true.

Peach makes a very un-bird-like snort. “Life can come from anywhere. The dark is not forever. You have a sun within you.”

Fred doesn’t say anything.

“I assume that answers your questions?” the bird prompts.

“Not really.”

Peach sighs, “It never does.”

“I’ve been thinking about Timeheart,” Fred says, apropos of nothing, before he can think better of it. On one side of the equation, Peach is one of the _Powers that Be_ , she can answer his fears if anyone can. On the other, Peach is a _Power_ , and Fred has never met a real live Power before and he’s a bit nervous.

Peach blinks at him.

Fred waffles, rallies, goes on, “I thought this was Timeheart, when I first came here.” He flares a bit, indicating the surrounding house, city, planet.

“I mean, you were clearly mistaken,” Peach says.

Fred bobs up and down, a kind of shrug, like he’s seen Nita do. “It could be, though,” he says. “All this life. It’s astounding.”

Peach cocks her head, “If you’re into that kind of thing, I guess.”

Fred looks at her with confusion.

“It’s all very disordered,” she clarifies.

“But a miraculous disorder,” Fred retorts.

“Yes,” Peach concedes, “but it’s all entropy. The great death of everything, spiralling into chaos…”

Fred thinks about this for a moment. Peach preens her feathers unconcernedly. In the other room, Annie lets out a snore.

“There needs to be entropy for there to be life,” Fred says.

“And therein is the dilemma, isn’t it?” Peach agrees. “Is some entropy better?”

“How do you decide,” Fred asks, “what’s good and what’s bad?”

“ _I_ don’t,” Peach replies. “That’s always been up to you. And it isn’t always simple… It’s tempting to just say that my sibling brought only harm, that entropy is a curse…”

“But it’s not,” Fred says.  “I _am_ entropy. I’ve always been.”

“As is everyone,” Peach says. “You’re all just energy changing and shifting and winding down.”

She looks morose.

“I don’t really want to wind down,” Fred says quietly.

“You’ll go out pretty spectacularly though,” Peach says.

“Maybe,” Fred says. “But if I never do blow my quanta, I’ll just evaporate until I’m gone.”

“There always Timeheart,” Peach quotes.

Fred bobs. “What’s Timeheart like?” he asks.

“I cannot honestly say I know,” Peach says.

Fred isn’t entirely sure he believes her, but doesn’t push.  He’s got a feeling like he’s about to hiccup, but deeper.

“I’m scared,” he finally says, a bit embarrassed.

Peach laughs, “Of course you are. Change is scary. You already know that. What about when you became a black hole?”

Fred casts his memory waaaaaay back. “I did so like being a star,” he says.

Peach looks like she’s gonna say something and Fred is fairly certain it’s going to be along the lines of ‘I told you so.’

“But I liked being a black hole too,” Fred continues,  “and I like being a white hole now. I like _being_. I don’t want to stop.”

“What’s loved lives,” Peach says.

Fred twirls around, embarrassed because what he’s thinking is petty but… “I’m not loved,” he says. “I do not meet other beings. I rarely see _matter_ out where I’m from. Who is there to remember me?”

Peach fixes him with a _look_. “The universe remembers. You are a _part of the cosmos_. The One does not forget that.”

* * *

 

It’s night now and Nita’s got her rowan wand and Fred has gotten no closer to puzzling out the television. He supposes this is understandable, as he’s been thinking about his conversation with Peach all afternoon.

“Nita,” he says, as she stretches out in bed with her manual.

“Yeah?” she says, glancing over.

Fred pauses. He’s not sure what he wanted to ask.‘Will you remember me?’ maybe, or ‘Am I the good kind of disorder?’ He feels a bit silly.

“It has been very educational, not to mention enjoyable, this past week,” he finally says.

“Hey, for me too,” she grins. “You’re a pretty great houseguest. Even with all the emissions.”

He thinks she’s teasing. “I hope I wasn’t more trouble than I am worth,” he says.

“Of course not,” she says.

“I’m just not sure if I’m doing the right things, if I’m making the universe better,” he says, and is immediately embarrassed because here he is a billions-year old white hole telling his worries to a _child_.

“For what it’s worth,” Nita says slowly, “you’ve made my personal universe better for knowing you. And in the grand scheme of things, there’s only one way to know.”

She pauses. Fred waits.

“You just have,” she says, “to go find out.”

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
